Between light and shadow: Paolo Roversi's 'Doubts'

At the MOP Foundation in A Coruña, ‘Doubts’ explores the photographer’s singular language through uncertainty, experimentation and the beauty of imperfection.

Audrey, Paris 1998

For Paolo Roversi, knowing more has never meant becoming more certain. Across more than four decades, the Italian photographer has built a visual language around shifting light, long exposures, blurred contours and accidents. MOP Foundation in A Coruña brings these ideas together in ‘Doubts’, on view until September 20.

Curated by Clara Bellville, the exhibition brings together 196 photographs, combining iconic works with previously unseen images. Rather than following a chronology, it unfolds through nine interconnected spaces: Theatre, Appearances, Shadows, Doubts, People, Presence, Grace, Beauty and Fading. The structure echoes Roversi’s practice, allowing uncertainty and discovery to shape the journey.

Olaf, Paris 2005

Kirsten, Paris 1997

Kirsten, Paris 1991

Working with large format Polaroid, Roversi lets movement and softness remain visible, sometimes intervening directly on photographs with paint or fabric. During long exposures, a handheld flashlight becomes another drawing tool, bringing a face, gesture or garment out of the darkness. Precision and improvisation coexist, leaving room for the unexpected.

That tension between light and shadow gives ‘Doubts’ its meaning. Some photographs remained in boxes for years before being rediscovered, suggesting that an image does not always reveal its value immediately. Here, doubt becomes a creative space.

In an image culture shaped by speed and sharpness, Roversi proposes another rhythm. Light fades, bodies dissolve into shadow and imperfections remain, leaving photography open to uncertainty, time and transformation.